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Detail

On 18 January 2013 we published the draft Pensions Bill (attached to this page) and submitted it to the Work and Pensions Select Committee for pre-legislative scrutiny. On 4 April 2013, the Select Committee published their report.

The draft Pensions Bill page includes both the draft legislation and the accompanying explanatory notes, which outline the effect of each clause.

Related documents

On Monday 18 March 2013, the government announced that, subject to Parliamentary approval of the Pensions Bill, the single-tier pension will start in April 2016. The documents published here are based on the draft Pensions Bill and reflect the position at the time they were published (which was that the single-tier pension would start from April 2017 at the earliest). Updated versions of these documents are now available on the Pensions Bill page. These reflect the Bill’s introduction to Parliament and the revised start date.

Impact assessments

Delegated Powers Memorandum

The Delegated Powers Memorandum identifies the provisions for delegated legislation in the draft Bill and explains the purpose of the powers, why they are left to delegated legislation and the parliamentary procedure selected for the exercise of these powers.

Pre-legislative scrutiny

We submitted the draft Pensions Bill to the Work and Pensions Select Committee for pre-legislative scrutiny of Part 1 of the draft legislation – the single-tier state pension clauses.

As part of their inquiry, the committee took into consideration both written and oral evidence from a range of sources including stakeholders, industry and the Minister for Pensions and produced a report in April 2013. This report made recommendations on several areas of the single-tier policy.

Comments on the draft Pensions Bill

We did not run a formal consultation on the draft Bill but did provide the opportunity for people to send comments on the draft legislation to the Pensions Bill team. The deadline for comments was 22 March 2013. We received a number of comments and these were considered to see if the legislation could be improved before it was introduced to Parliament.

Main provisions

State Pension (the single-tier pension)

The draft Bill contained provisions to implement the single-tier state pension as set out in The single-tier pension: a simple foundation for saving. The single-tier pension will, for future pensioners, replace the current basic State Pension and additional State Pension with a flat-rate pension that is set above the basic level of means-tested support.

Bringing forward the increase in the State Pension age to 67

This change will mean that the State Pension age will gradually rise from 66 to 67 between 2026 and 2028.

A framework for future changes to State Pension age

The framework provided for a regular review of the State Pension age based around the principle that people should spend a given proportion of their lives receiving a State Pension.

Bereavement benefits

The draft Bill contained provisions to introduce Bereavement Support Payment to replace the existing bereavement benefits for new customers. The reforms will significantly simplify the system by moving to a more uniform payment structure with support focused on the period immediately following bereavement and a single contribution condition. These proposals were set out in the government response to the Bereavement Benefit for the 21st Century consultation.

Private pensions

The draft Bill contains a number of provisions relating to private pensions, most of which amend existing legislation.

Published:

18 January 2013

Updated:

10 May 2013

+ full page history

10 May 2013 10:41am

Updated information with references to the publication of the Pensions Bill.